POLITICS AND "FISCALITIS."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 66, 17 March 1908, Page 4

POLITICS AND "FISCALITIS."

There is not much to clioose between the two great political parties at Home so far as their general disorganisation is concerned. Mr. Balfour's Government lost office chiefly because the Unionist party had been split up by the raising of the Tariff Reform question. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his friends may soon find their position hopelesly insecure through the division of feeling over the "Socialist" issues that are now being ceaselessly raised at Home. This pervading sense of disunion and anarchy is now painfully apparent in the political controversies of the day, and the "Spectator" has just emphasised the disruption of the old Liberal party by a remarkable forecast dealing with the political prospects of Mr. Wins* ton Churchill and Mr. Lloyd George. According to this eminent authority, these two gentlemen are "Protectionists at heart," but they are afraid to lay claim to the tariff reform policy already 'closely identified with Unionism. But the "Spectator," which apparently has no high conception of the political consistency of these statesmen prophesies that they will yet preach a new Liberalism of a highly socialistic kind, involving the nationalisation of railways and canals and the protection of home industries by various expedients against foreign competition. The " Spectator " would probably not resent political perfidy so fiercely as desertion, of the Free Trade standard; but the recent course of events at Home shows that public feeling on this question is rapidly changing its tone. As to-day's cables show, the immediate effect of the new Patents Act has been to drive foreign manufacturers using British patents to start factories in England. A German company with a capital of _c 13,000,000 has just arranged to build an immense factory in Cheshire; and the same result will inevitably follow the enforcement of the Act elsewhere. Mr. Lloyd-George has the penetration to see the advantages of. a system that secures for England some share of the benefits derived from her own industrial ingenuity and skill; and this is a great concession from

a member of a/Government that has em. piratically repudiated the idea of Tariff Reform. But the apprehensiveness of the "Spectator" about Mr. Lloyd-George's political future shows plainly how effectively this fiscal question has acted in loosening old ties and dividing the political parties along new lines of cleavage. Socialism and Fiscal Policy are the two great constructive policies of the day, and whatever be their relative values it is now clear that they have already begun to change the face of the political situation, and that before long they will have effected a complete rearrangement of political parties, and perhaps a readjustment of the balance of political power.